Funding cuts will bring some down but not all will ride into valley of death, vice chancellors predict

John Morgan

Times Higher Education

5 August 2010

PA Consulting Group’s report on the future of UK universities, A Passing Storm, or Permanent Climate Change? Vice-chancellors' Views on the Outlook for Universities, is the focus of a major news article in the Times Higher Education magazine. The report is based on a survey of UK vice-chancellors, and PA’s education experts Mike Boxall and Paul Woodgates explain the implications of the survey findings in the article.

According to the report, three-quarters of UK vice-chancellors predict that some universities will "fail or disappear" within the next three years. Asked about the impact of funding and policy changes, 74 per cent of respondents to the PA Consulting survey say it is "very likely" or "probable" that institutions will fail.

The survey results also highlight a widening gulf between senior management and staff, with 60 per cent of vice-chancellors citing their "inability to move or change intransigent staff" among their three greatest internal constraints.

PA’s Paul Woodgates goes on to give his interpretation of the report. Paul says that prioritising overseas income was "fine at the institutional level, but when you add it up and see that all of those institutions view internationalisation as a top priority, there is a question about whether the market is potentially big enough to sustain that".

Mike Boxall, another education specialist at PA “asked whether universities had properly analysed the relative costs and benefits from home and overseas students, with the latter entailing higher recruitment and support costs.”

PA Consulting undertook its online survey in June and July this year, inviting 155 institution heads to take part and receiving 43 responses. You can read the report in full here www.paconsulting.com/education.